Christmas Projects!

Hell my friend,

Well Covid has finally eased off.  I just have a stuffed up nose and a bit of a hoarse voice left-over and that's about it!  Thank goodness!  And thank goodness for sewing easy projects in colours that make me happy.  What would we ever do without our sewing machines?

I got the Take 5 quilt together and I have to say - I love it!  Take 5 is a perfect pattern to use up beautiful prints like these and it goes together so quickly.  Every time I make one of these I'm constantly surprised at how much I like it.  I made a Christmas Take 5 several years ago to donate to a fundraiser and I always planned on making another one - well, here she is!

I also found a deep red wide-back in my stash, you can see it on the right side of the picture, that will be perfect for this quilt.

Next up, in my quest to deal with the mountain of Christmas fabrics in my stash, is this wonky log cabin.  This has to be one of the most freeing projects I have ever worked on!  Seriously, this is just a throw it together and it will work out later sort of projects that I don't usually do.  And man is this using up some bits.  I always tear my wide-backs, because they get cut so wonky off the bolt, not anyone's fault, but they load so so much better if they are torn before they are loaded.  Anyways, I used the torn left-over red to cut some squares and rectangles for the centre pieces of the log cabins and then just went for it with piecing strips and bits.  A great way to use up the odd shaped piece of tear-off fabric.

I squared these up using my Studio 10.5" square die but you could use the one for the Go Big too.  This is pretty big for this style of quilt, and you could make these smaller, say 6.5", but I like the bigger size.

After pulling out my Christmas 2" squares bin I realized that I could use a few of these as well for the initial pieces - win!  Why, oh why does this bin never seem to get smaller no matter how much I pull out of it?  Well, to be fair, I added a LOT of squares to it after I processed the scraps from mask making.  Sigh - someday this will be depleted - right?

Probably not, but a girl can dream right LOL!

See what I mean?  This is filled to the brim!

I've also been playing a lot with my sourdough bread.  This is a really easy recipe that is 100% whole wheat.  It doesn't spring up as much as a 100% white recipe but it's delicious and just beautiful with soup.  If you make sourdough bread - give this one a try.

My husband liked this loaf so much that he would only cut the right side of it and hasn't touched the left yet LOL!

Next up, I just bought some tea towels to do a tutorial for the oven handle cloths I made for a friend.  Stay tuned for that and happy quilting!

 

It Finally Caught Up With Me

Well Covid finally caught up with me.  After all this time I finally got it and it packed a punch.  I'm on day seven and finally starting to feel like myself which is such a relief.  Thank goodness for quilting!    Once I got some strength back I was able to get a few things done.  

In my efforts to deplete my Christmas fabric stash I decided to cut out a new Christmas quilt!  I love Christmas fabrics so much so I usually like to showcase them with larger pieces if I can.  Take 5 is a perfect, easy pattern to showcase nice prints and I have the die for my Studio cutter.  So it was easy to cut enough for 42 blocks (6x7 set - maybe I will cut a few more, I haven't decided yet).  

Last night, I pieced all of the blocks - these are so fast, and this morning I laid them out and guess who found them and claimed them LOL!?  River does love fabric - she's my girl.

What do you think?  My husband thinks they look like presents all lined up, and I like that.  I think it will look good on a bed.

Next up a friend asked me to make these towel toppers for her as her sewing machine was acting up.  This was a great, easy project and I think I might make a few of my own.

 

If I make a few more - would you like a tutorial?

Preemie Quilts and What Have I Been Doing?

Ahh Preemie Quilts!

I do love to make them.  Our local quilt guild collects preemie quilts for a NICU in Ottawa (that's where my son was after he was born) and I do try to make a bunch every year to donate.  During Covid I actually fell off when mask making took over, but, as Wednesday was our first meeting of the guild year, I gathered all of the ones up that I'd made over the past three years, and bundled them up to bring to the guild.  Check it out!  There are 20 ready to go.

A bunch of them are mask remnants:  Star Wars, Bat Man, sports etc.  Some are 2" leaders and enders 16-patch blocks with setting squares that I have been doing forever!  These are my favourite way to use up kids prints and left-over white fabrics and they always look so cute.  You can see a tutorial I posted many years ago here.

Some of these are actually orphan blocks that I purchased from a thrift store - you can see the blue and yellow quilt in the bottom row and the houses bottom right - neither of these were my blocks but I made them into preemie quilts.  And the two in the bottom row, that look like a road, were made by my oldest son during Covid so he could learn to use my long arm :-)

Here they all are on the donate pile at the guild ready to go to their new owners.

And - last - I thought that I would share a little bit about what I've been doing!  I realized at the quilt guild that none of my quilting friends really know what I've been doing over the past few years.

This is me last weekend during the Sound Bath I led to a full house.  I play various instruments:  crystal bowls, gong, rainstick, ocean drums, chimes, bar chimes etc, with my husband on the guitar and hand pan.  This takes up quilt a bit of time to completely arrange these evenings so I haven't done much quilting the past couple of weeks.  We absolutely love doing this!  There's something so rewarding about offering the gift of relaxation and time for yourself :-)

Also, during Covid a lot of my yoga trainings went online!  So, I was able to do all of the coursework and intensives to complete my training, over the past three years, to be a Yoga Therapist!  I have just entered my practicum year and am taking clients. 

Long and short - I went back to school to attain a professional designation and I am starting a new (or sort of new) journey to helping people live better and fuller lives using the tools of yoga:  meditation, breath work, postures, mantra, nervous system works and a lot more.  I am specializing in nervous system work, mental health and the menopausal transition.  If you would like to read more about what Yoga Therapy is you can check out this link, and, if you would like to work with me you can check out this link. 

Life is good!

 

Binding Update

Hello my friend!

I'm motoring right along with my St. Patrick's Day T-Shirt quilt.  I took it off the frame a couple days ago and started to think about a binding.  Luckily I remembered that I way over-cut this Kona Parrot green fabric into 2 1/2" strips.  I don't bind at  2 1/2" - I prefer a 2 1/4" - but I really didn't relish the idea of cutting 1/4" off all the strips!

Luckily I have the 2 1/4" strip die for my AccuQuilt cutter.  I just laid them out, stacked a few strips high, and ran it through.

Perfect and so fast!  So little waste.  Someone actually seemed surprised to find out I still die-cut a while back LOL!  I asked them - still rotary cut?  They rolled their eyes at me - but seriously?  Why would I pick up a rotary cutter when I own the die and I have a bunch of strips to cut?

After cutting and preparing the binding I love using my Binding Babies to wind it and dispense the binding.  My favourites are always the limited edition ones that I get directly from the company - like my cute little vampire.  I have a bunch of these so I can leave my favourite colours prewound and beautifully displayed ;-)

Next up - I think I'll start a new Leaders and Enders project that I've been thinking about for a while - orange and grey.

I know - not everyone's cup of tea but I adore orange and grey together.  I'm thinking of an alternating orange and grey 16-patch and maybe a snowball or a star sashing with black points to make it into a fall sort of Halloween quilt.  

I'm honestly looking forward to getting back to straight up good-old 2" squares and no HSTs!

What do you think?  Grey and orange - yes or nay?

 

Quilting a Shamrock

 Hello my friend!

After we got home from the cottage I decided to get to work on my St Patrick's Day T-Shirt quilt.  I have some commission work to do and this one was already loaded onto the frame and ready to go.  I even picked Glide Celery thread for the top and bobbin.

So I decided to finish it up first.  Besides - I actually pieced a backing for this one from some left-overs and large pieces and I didn't want to load it again.  I really don't like taking a quilt off the frame when it's ready to go.  I don't know about you, but it takes me a while to get it loaded onto the frame and I hate to undo that work.

I decided on a simple straight-line piano key quilting in the border, but, for the body I wanted something more.  I sketched and doodled shamrocks for a good while on my white board (thank goodness for white boards!) until I came up with something that worked for me.  

I'm being vulnerable here so you can see the process :-) I realized that quilting the two side heart like a figure eight was the key to this process instead of going around it in a circle - right side, left side and then the top.

I made a video so you could see what I was talking about. 

It's a little long but I love watching people free-motion on the long arm.  Maybe you do too?

Let me know what you think and if you enjoyed my quilting video.

Happy Quilting!

The Split 9-Patch Centre is Complete!!

Hello my friend!

Thank you all to warm welcome back to blogging.  It feels good to be sharing in this format again. For a while I thought that social media would completely replace a blog - nope!  I was wrong.  There's something beautiful about this longer form of communication.  I know another that contributed to my lack of blogging was that I was trying to blog from my iPad - huge mistake!  It takes way too long.  I have a new Apple laptop and wow what a difference!

Yesterday we took my son to Trent University - and left him there!  :-o

That was hard and nerve wracking if I can be honest.  I had great plans to come home and get the final row done but it didn't happen.  Instead, we came home and chilled.  The campus is beautiful, right on the water and his housemates seem nice - so he's in good hands.

Instead I got up this morning and finished the last row in this Split 9-Patch quilt.  I went outside and sat at the water to pin the row.  This is always a big job in a Leaders and Enders quilt like this because there are so many points and seams.  This was a nice way to do the pinning ;-)

After sewing the last row on I had to see it out and wow!  I'm in love!  All this from the humble Split 9-Patch.

Look at how all the colours look like sparkles in the dappled light.  So many colours, and they all come together in the end.

With all of my L&E quilts I go through a hate stage.  I get to the point where I just want to throw it all in the garbage, donate it or just get rid of it somehow.  This job just seemed too big, too drawn out and, frankly, taking way too long.

Started in 2011 (when I purchased the 1.5" finished HST die) to having the centre finished in 2023.  This is actually a pretty big quilt.  I had to lay it out on a Queen sized bed to see how it lays and I'm so surprised to say it's actually dropping over the edge a few inches.

I was going to do a more elaborate border, but, now, I'm thinking a smaller first and a wider second border - simple.  No idea of the colour yet but I will be pulling from my stash.  Thoughts?

 

Split Nine Patch Update!

Hi there!

If you follow along on my Facebook page you will have seen this picture of an old Leaders and Enders project.  I laid this out and realized that I only need two more blocks to be able to piece the last row and I have a lot of things already together - these last two blocks might just come together pretty quickly!

 Can you believe this was started in 2011 when I bought the HST die and first posted about it 2012!  Check it out! This quilt has been a long time in the making - here's an update from 2019.  

The biggest stumbling block - the off-white/cream/light-tan background fabrics.  I tend to buy a lot of an off-white and make projects from it but this project required so many different print scraps!  All the coloured prints - no problem I have bins of those - it's the background fabrics for me.

This quilt uses only two dies - the 2" square die

And the 1 1/2" finished half square triangle die

Hard to believe I know but it really is just all done using these two.  Of course you can do this without die-cutting, using traditional half square triangle (HST) methods.  And, of course you can do this in different sizes.  For example 2 1/2" squares and or the Value Die.  

I will be over-joyed to get this quilt done!  I'm still debating the border - kinda thinking about a first border and then maybe a 16-patch outer border?  I have lots and lots of those already pieced, but, it might be way too much.  Maybe a solid?

Thoughts?

It's Been A Long Time!

Hello my friend!

It's been quite some time since I last blogged.  My husband pointed something out to me today.  He noticed that I haven't blogged since my Mother in Law (who was a quilter) passed.  Honestly - I didn't realize it, but, I haven't.  She used to read my blogs, and, chastise me for not blogging enough LOL!  When the blogging algorithm changed, my blogging became much more infrequent because I wasn't seeing the interaction I used to see, but I would put out blog updates.  Since she passed - not one post.  Sigh - I hope to change that.

Needless to say - I got the urge to blog today because I have an update on a post from allll the way back in April of 2012 I found this sewing cabinet on the side of the road for FREE!  You can check out the post for more details but this cabinet has been used as a table for over ten years!

I finally decided to bring it up to the cottage after 9 years of sewing on an old, uneven table.  I realized that the small insert area would perfectly fit my Pfaff Passport sewing machine and found the Sew Steady company that made custom inserts to fit cabinets and machine combinations - even this OLD Singer cabinet.

Why did I want to get an insert for this cabinet and not just buy a new one?  Sorry for the bad picture, but, can you sew what's under the machine??  A working hydraulic lift!  This is an excellent cabinet with a hydraulic lift, Serger area and it folds down!  It fits my Passport perfectly so no need to spend over a thousand dollars for a new one.

Check out how nice my set up is now!  Sew Steady was an excellent company to work with.  We had quite an extensive back and forth as I sent them measurements for a cabinet they hadn't seen before, and they searched for something that would work.  They eventually found a piece and made my insert and shipped it out promptly.  It's beautiful!  It's a thick piece of plexiglass and the cuts are beautiful.  I'm very pleased.  I'm not paid by them in anyway - just a happy customer.

This cabinet also folds down completely when I need to put everything away - when we have guests with small children running around ;-) and, the dark brown wood actually blends well with the cottage.  

I also decided to move my old sewing chair up here - soooooo much more comfortable than the rickety wooden one I was perching on before with my bum elevated by a pillow!  I think I'm getting serious about my quilting here now LOL!

Sew Steady also sent me this press on ruler - but I can't decide where to stick it!  Where do you stick yours?  Right in front?  On the front edge of the table?  Help a quilter out!

I'm so happy I finally decided to take the time and set myself up properly here.  I love sewing here at the cottage.  I just love it.  I just had to take the time to set myself up so my body would like it more.  So silly it took me this long - sigh.

I am pledging now - I will blog again!  I enjoy this and I hope that you enjoyed reading about my 11 year journey with this sewing cabinet :-D

Katrina

 

I Ripped!

 I ripped!

You had to know that I would do this.  I ripped the quilt again and added the two t-shirts to the quilt.  Thank you for your encouragement to do what I wanted to do.

I couldn’t resist and I think it looks so much better now.  There is less blank space and the last two t-shirts have now been added.

I’m so glad I went with my gut instead of my head on this one.  My head was saying - it’s fine.  My gut and heart were saying - you know you want to add those two blocks and it won’t take a lot of time - just do it!

That cardinal block is hand painted and hand embellished so how could I not include someone’s art into the quilt?

Now - I’m just contemplating adding borders to make it more of a bed size.  I have a couple flannels I’m going to put on the back, so it will be nice an cozy, now, I just need to decide if I add borders - my gut is saying a huge yes to borders.

Christmas T-Shirt Quilt - Take 2

Christmas Quilt - Take 2!
 A while back I posted this Christmas T-Shirt quilt I was working on.  This one is just for me.  No deadline.  Not a commission quilt.  Just for us.  I put it together over Christmas and i was never really happy with how it turned out.  

Specifically - I wasn’t happy with the entire bottom right hand corner and the bottom row.  I really didn’t like the way that I had the spacer fabric in there and a lot of negative space; so, I put it away and slowly thrifted a few more t-shirts.

On the weekend I realized that I had enough shirts to fix some of it, so I took it apart and added in some shirts.

I am so much happier with it!  It makes so much more sense now and looks so much better. UNTIL - I found a couple of the shirts that I had pulled out under my chair - sigh!  Just like me LOL!

Now I’m thinking about taking apart this section here and adding in the two fallen blocks and getting rid of a little more negative space.  

What do you think?  Do I rip and re-sew again or leave it?  Help!

Silly Sloths - A Commission

Quite a while ago a friend asked me to make a quilt for her as a commission (a gift for her friend) and I agreed.  She chose the Silly Sloths pattern.  It was an appliqué quilt and a pretty simple pattern.  The pattern was raw edge appliqué, and, although this is quick it isn’t my favourite technique; so, I decided to make faced.

I enlarged the pattern and did the face and body faced but the features are all raw edge appliqué.  I have to say - it is really CUTE!

Seriously cute!  I decided on 12 enlarged blocks instead of the 20 that the original pattern called for - less appliqué ;-)  And, I really like the bigger sloths.

It looked like we might be getting a storm, the light was perfect outside for photos, so, I made my oldest hold the quilt up for a few pictures.  The grey light makes the colours pop just a bit more.

I used a yellow flannel for the back, cotton batting and a few different Glide threads to quilt this cutie.  Glide is a go to for me.

Now - let’s hope that she likes the quilt when she sees it!  What do you think?  Will she like it?

Soup and Stew Season

 Have you jumped on the bowl cozy train yet?  I did yesterday!  

Here’s a little back story - we are a crockpot family.  I make soups, chilli, stew, curries - etc - all in the crockpot.  In the winter, I pretty much have a crockpot going most days.  I bake bread -  my latest passion is gluten free sourdough bread, to go with all of the crockpot goodness.  We love leftovers and use the microwave quite a bit to reheat.

My boys’ birthdays are this week.  They are both early 20’s now and both currently live at home, well, one is in college, hello pandemic!  So, they don’t need much except cash as presents.  I figured a few bowl cozies would be a fun little gift I could make them.  Needless to say - I made a couple for us as well.

At first I started with the Sweet Red Poppy tutorial but I started modifying it to accommodate my 10.5” Studio Square die and I wanted the edges rounded, so I came up with my own variation on the pattern.  You can see the original with the squared edges top right on the below picture. 

The others are my variation.  They are slightly smaller and they fit our bowls better - plus I get to use a die instead of a rotary cutter so it’s a win for me!

Make sure that you only use 100% cotton everything in these - fabric, thread and batting.  I used Wrap and Zap as most 100% cotton battings aren’t really 100% cotton - they have a scrim that is polyester.  Yes, I know, not all of them do, but a lot more battings have a scrim than we would think!  So why take a chance, and cause a fire in your microwave?

We have already used them and we all LOVE them!  Even if you’re not using the microwave these are just nice to use when you get steaming hot food from the crockpot!

There is a Go! die for this, but I don’t own it - - - - yet!  

Do you have the die?  Do you like it?

What a YEAR!

 Happy New Year!

What a year 2021 has been!  It’s been a crazy busy year full of ups and downs, pivots and changes, learning and growing and just changes!

I have learned a lot and actually taught a lot.  I pivoted my fitness business almost entirely online and surprisingly I LOVE it!  I love offering classes online.  I’m actually really shocked about this; and, it has made me consider teaching quilting online and developing courses online - would this be something you would be interested in? 

I also have been sewing a LOT!  We took some time off over Christmas to head to the cottage and I took this simple T-Shirt quilting project with me to work on. 

Most of these shirts were thrift store finds and most were almost new!  I love giving new life to old items like this.  And, I am thrilled to have another Christmas t-shirt quilt.  I’ll take it home as is and auction fabrics for the borders next.  

I also managed to get a commissioned quilt done for before Christmas.

One lucky girl got this memory blanket user her tree for Christmas.  Sorry for the lighting!  This was being picked up and I wanted to finish it.  I love turning items taking up space in drawers into something beautiful and useful.

I will share more on a much more regular basis.

I wish you a safe and Happy New Year!

I Forgot I Die Cut!

 So, I brought some quilting to the cottage last weekend and I forgot a rotary cutter!  Can you believe it?  I got my sewing to a point and then I had to sub cut the strip sets.   It was also a long weekend, here in Ontario it was Family, and, the stores were closed so I couldn’t even buy a new rotary cutter!!  I was so disappointed.  

Well, imagine how silly I felt when I remembered that I brought my AccuQuilt Go! And a lot of the dies to the cottage!!  Wahoo!  

I arranged the strip-sets on my 1.5” strip die and wahoo - seconds later I had more sewing to do!

I cannot believe I forgot I had this LOL!  if I was at home I would have immediately die cut these; but, I am not used to having my Go! At the cottage.  Well, that will teach me!  Needless to say - I finished my blocks :-D

Star Wars T-Shirt Quilt!

 It is finally done!!  I finally completed this Queen size Star Wars T-Shirt quilt! 

Wahoo!  Seriously I cannot tell you how happy I am that this is finished.  Like everything else it was put on hold when the mask making frenzy hit our house but now it is quilted and done!  This quilt was a few years in the making.  A couple of the shirts I bought new for it.  Hello Mandalorian  shirt!  Some were ours - Abbey Road Droids, Darth Maul and Boba Fett.  But, the rest of these were all second hand - yard sales and thrift shops.

It took a few years to find all of these but so worth it!  49 shirts in all are in this quilt.  AND I have more that didn’t make it in because they were more kid-like.  But, these are going to go into a kids Star Wars T-shirt quilt - don’t worry!

Can you find that little shirt label in the last photo?  Bottom left.  I found a small hole in that spot, while quilting!!  I wanted to scream LOL!  But I usually keep the shirt labels if they look cool so I grabbed one and appliquéd and quilted it down after sealing the hole.  I figure it’s a feature of the quilt now right?

This is all quilted in 40 weight Glide Thread in Titanium, top and bobbin, using a wide back mottled black flannel and 80/20 batting.  I also used my new spoon foot to quilt this and wow what a difference getting over the seams!  So much easier - if you make T-shirt quilts you should grab one of these for sure.

One other person in this house loves this quilt too!  Don’t judge I could resist!!  So do you like my Star Wars quilt?

A Yoga Training Led to Machine Quilting

I finished it!

Another scrappy quilt for Christmas!  Not that I need another one at all!  I have so many already, I suppose, but, red and green is one of my favourite colour combinations, especially with a gold accent, and, these were all leftover units from other quilts!  Namely, the scrappy Christmas Quilt A Long I posted a few years ago and all of my awesome 2” squares!  

This quilt has had a bit of a journey!  I finished the top on January 4th of 2020 and put it away to quilt at a different time.

Snow was on the ground then and it is again!  

Two weeks ago I took a lovely yoga training called YogaFit for Caregivers.  It was a one day training on how to help those who are in a caregiving position, be it people who are; caring for the ill or aging, children, or, people who are PSWs and also yoga teachers, basically anyone who may experience burnout but specifically compassion fatigue and how to prevent it with self care.  One of the tasks we had to do was write down three things we do for self-care.  One of my items was actually ruler-work!  I surprised myself when I wrote that down without thinking!

Ever since I started making masks I haven’t had the time or energy to do any ruler-work!  A few weeks ago I uncovered my longarm - I had been using it for storage of fabric and finished masks.  So, after the course I took it as a sign to get quilting again!  I did a couple of other quick quilting jobs first - to see if I had the skills still - and then I tackled this one.

I brought it up to the cottage to finish hand sewing the binding and I set a goal to finish it for Christmas! 

Late on Christmas Day I finished hand sewing the binding down!  Since it was too late to take photos I waited until today to take them and I am so glad that I did!  Christmas Day here was a foggy, slushy kind of day and today was cloudy but crisp and the lake was frozen by our cottage!  This picture may look dangrous

I was so nice to get out on the lake to take photos of a Christmas quilt again this year!  I know it seems silly, but, I think we need to find joy where we can these days; and, getting out on the lake to take quilt photos is something that brings me joy every time I am able to do it!

Last Christmas I was able to take pictures of my Christmas T-Shirt quilt on the lake and this year it is a scrappy Christmas quilt!  I never did post photos of this quilt from last Christmas so here it is LOL!

There is just something so Canadian to these Christmases we have here!  When the lake freezes and my husband goes out and clears a rink for skating and we bring out the net and hockey sticks.  Me?  I love to stay inside by the fire and quilt!

I hope that you all had a safe, healthy and wonderful Christmas - even though it wasn’t what we are used to - I hope that it was nice!